Comet Wirtanen and the upcoming Lunar Eclipse

What a year.  I don't think I've had more than 20 nights that were good for astrophotography. Although I did notice that I have about 35 pictures up on my Astrobin site, many were either planets, globular clusters (which don't need really clear skies) or very bright nebulae. I'm looking forward to 2019; eternal optimist!

Recent attempts were to capture the brightest comet of 2018 - Comet 46P/Wirtanen. Closest approach was mid-December, but the full moon would be an issue so I started to capture it once it rose high enough to get out of the light pollution which is pretty severe to my SE-S. That was back in early December. Here is that attempt, feeble as it is. I tried to get some better shots later in the month, but processing issues have thus far prevented any reasonable result. And then came the rains.

Comet 46/P Wirtanen - Dec 4, 2018
WO GT102 Apo; QHY10 OSC Camera - 60x60 sec

The comet itself came very close to earth (about 170,000 miles on Dec 16) and so was quite large (over 3x the size of the moon). So even though it was a bright comet, the light was so spread out over such a large area of the sky that it was difficult to see with the unaided eye. As Wikipedia notes:
46P/Wirtanen is a small short-period comet with a current orbital period of 5.4 years. It was the original target for close investigation by the Rosetta spacecraft, planned by the European Space Agency, but an inability to meet the launch window caused Rosetta to be sent to 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko instead. It belongs to the Jupiter family of comets, all of which have aphelia between 5 and 6 AU. Its diameter is estimated at 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi).

If, and when, I get the newer images processed I'll post them here.

Heads up - there will be a total eclipse of the moon on January. Here are the details from Sky and Telescope magazine.

Here are key events for the total lunar eclipse on January 20–21, 2019.
It's been more than three years since everyone in the U.S. has experienced a total lunar eclipse — the last one was September 27–28, 2015 — and skygazers are hungry for another! As the graphic at right shows, the eclipse will last almost 3½ hours from the beginning of the partial phase at 3:34 UT until it ends at 6:51 UT. Totality lasts 63 minutes, from 4:41 to 5:44 UT.

Leah Tiscione / Sky & Telescope

The timing of this one, with mid-eclipse at 5:12 UT, gives everyone in North America a ringside seat — though it'll be a late night for anyone on the East Coast. As veteran skywatcher Joe Rao notes in Sky & Telescope's January issue, the eclipsed Moon will appear high in a mid-winter sky, and this event occurs on the Sunday night of a 3-day holiday weekend in the U.S. So if it's clear that night, you'll have no (good) excuse for skipping this wonderful celestial event.

The diagram at upper right and the table below show you what to look for and when (UT times are all for January 21st; local times are on the 20th if "p.m." and the 21st if "a.m."):

Event	UT	PST	MST	CST	EST	AST
Penumbra first visible?	3:10	7:10 p.m.	8:10 p.m.	9:10 p.m.	10:10 p.m.	11:10 p.m.
Partial eclipse begins	3:34	7:34 p.m.	8:34 p.m.	9:34 p.m.	10:34 p.m.	11:34 p.m.
Total eclipse begins	4:41	8:41 p.m.	9:41 p.m.	10:41 p.m.	11:41 p.m.	12:41 a.m.
Middle of totality	5:12	9:12 p.m.	10:12 p.m.	11:12 p.m.	12:12 a.m.	1:12 a.m.
Total eclipse ends	5:44	9:44 p.m.	10:44 p.m.	11:44 p.m.	12:44 a.m.	1:44 a.m.
Partial eclipse ends	6:51	10:51 p.m.	11:51 p.m.	12:51 a.m.	1:51 a.m.	2:51 a.m.
Penumbra last visible?	7:15	11:15 p.m.	12:15 a.m.	1:15 a.m.	2:15 a.m.	3:15 a.m.

The Wizard Nebula in SHO (The Hubble Palette)

Thanksgiving night was a good clear evening, and I wanted to get some Sii subs to add to the Wizard Nebula that I imaged earlier this month. Since NB imaging can be done even in moonlit skies, and with no more clear nights in the near future, I decided to go ahead and capture about 100 minutes of Sii light even though there was a near full moon out.

The result was not too bad. Here is the redo of the Wizard Nebula in SHO, known as the Hubble Palette, since the Hubble telescope frequently images in this way:  Sii ->Red, Ha ->Green and Oiii ->Blue.

The resultant image shows that I really need to add much more data to get a cleaner, less noisy image; probably another 2 hours of each filter.

NGC 7380 - The Wizard Nebula
November 10,11 and 22, 2018
GT102 (f/5.6) with ASI1600mm Pro Camera
15x60sec RGB; 10x300sec Ha and Oiii; 20x300sec Sii

The Cocoon Nebula in RGBHa

After capturing the remaining green and blue subs on November 4th, I was able to complete the RGBHa composite of the Cocoon nebula.  I had already shot the 1 hour of Ha and most of the color subs before the clouds moved in on October 19th.

IC 5146 (also known as Caldwell 19, Sh 2-125, and the Cocoon Nebula) is a reflection/emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The NGC description refers to IC 5146 as a cluster of 9.5 mag stars involved in a bright and dark nebula. The cluster is also known as Collinder 470. It shines at magnitude +10.0/+9.3/+7.2. It is located near the naked-eye star Pi Cygni, the open cluster NGC 7209 in Lacerta, and the bright open cluster M39. The cluster is about 4,000 ly away, and the central star that lights it formed about 100,000 years ago; the nebula is about 12 arcmins across, which is equivalent to a span of 15 light years. (Wikipedia)

IC 5146 - The Cocoon Nebula in RGBHa
WO GT102 (4", f/5.6)
ASI1600mm 20x60sec ea. RGB; 15x240sec Ha

Astrophotography Session in Early November

Clear skies are hard to come by these past 2 years, so when they do come along you gotta take advantage of them. Early November was a good time - clear skies, no moon.

First up is the Eastern Veil Nebula, NGC 6992. The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It constitutes the visible portions of what is known as the Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant, many portions of which have acquired their own individual names and catalogue identifiers. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, which exploded around 8,000 years ago. The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full Moon). (Wiki)

The complete nebula is too large to capture in a single image and would require a multiple image mosaic. But that would require a lot of time (and some techniques that I have not mastered yet).  So I've imaged the eastern section by itself. The nebula was captured over two nights, November 3 and 10, 2018, with a total exposure time of 5 hours. Using a monochrome camera with narrowband (NB) filters the resultant bi-color photo was a combination of thirty, five minutes exposures in both the Hydrogen Alpha wavelength, Ha, and the doubly ionized Oxygen wavelength, Oiii. This combination, applying the Ha to the red channel, and the Oiii to the green and blue channels produces what is known as an HOO image.

NGC 6992 - The Eastern Veil Nebula
Nov 3 & 10, 2018 - WO GT102 APO Refractor (4", f/5.6)
ASI1600mm Pro Camera - 30x300sec Ha; 30x300sec Oiii

Next is NGC 7380 (also known as the Wizard Nebula) which is an open cluster discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. William Herschel included his sister's discovery in his catalog, and labelled it H VIII.77. It is also known as 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142). This reasonably large nebula is located in Cepheus. It is extremely difficult to observe visually, usually requiring very dark skies and an O-III filter.

Located 7200 light years away, the Wizard nebula, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer. The active star forming region spans about 100 light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. (Wiki)

Similar to the process of imaging the Veil, the Wizard Nebula was captured using the two NB filters, Ha and Oiii, but also merging in the complete RGB for capturing the correct color of the stars. This image is typically named RGBHOO. Captured on Nov 10 and 11, 2018, it is the result of 2.4 hours of exposure (15x60sec in each color, RGB, and 10x300sec in the NB).

NGC 7380 - The Wizard Nebula
Nov 10 & 11, 2018 - WO GT102 (4"; f/5.6)
ASI1600mm camera - 15x60sec each RGB; 10x300 Ha and Oiii

Parker Solar Probe on its way

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman High-Res Image

Hours before the rise of the very star it will study, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched from Florida Sunday, Aug. 12 to begin its journey to the Sun, where it will undertake a landmark mission. The spacecraft will transmit its first science observations in December, beginning a revolution in our understanding of the star that makes life on Earth possible.

For the complete story of this remarkable project head on over to APL.

Some New Images

It's been a really poor year for astrophotography - very few clear nights, and when I get them, I'm busy doing other work. In the summer its harder because you only get 5.5 hours of darkness (which starts at 10:30PM making imaging on weeknights tough). But here are a few more photos I've taken recently.

M17 - Omega Nebula - July 9, 2018
EdgeHD11 w/Hyperstar  f/2
QHY10 - 120x90sec at -20C

First up is the Omega nebula. The Omega Nebula, also known as the Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, and the Horseshoe Nebula (catalogued as Messier 17 or M17 or NGC 6618) is an H II region in the constellation Sagittarius. It is between 5,000 and 6,000 light-years from Earth and it spans some 15 light-years in diameter. The cloud of interstellar matter of which this nebula is a part is roughly 40 light-years in diameter and has a mass of 30,000 solar masses. The total mass of the Omega Nebula is an estimated 800 solar masses.

First Quarter Moon - July 19, 2018
William Optics GT102 f/5.6
ASI1600mm Pro - 250 frames stacked

Next is our moon, ol'Luna, at the 1st quarter phase. This one got me "Top Pick" on Astrobin.com where I host all my astrophotos.

Comet 21/P - July 8, 2018
EdgeHD11 w/Hyperstar f/2
QHY10 - 30x90sec at -20C

Last is a periodic comet, 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, which I got just recently. This comet will be brightening in the next few weeks, so as long as the skies cooperate I'll attempt better captures.

Globulars and a Galaxy

Clear nights are hard to come by this year, so when I got a few back in mid June I stayed up late and captured a few DSOs (that's Deep Sky Objects). Luckily the 15th was a Friday, so I could sleep in a bit on Saturday.

First up is M80, a globular cluster in the constellation Scorpius. It was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781. With an apparent diameter of about 10' and at an estimated distance of 32,600 light-years, M80's spatial diameter is about 95 light-years. It contains several hundred thousand stars, and is among the more densely populated globular clusters in the Milky Way (Wikipedia).

M80 - EdgeHD-11 w/FR f/7.0
ASI1600mm Pro (RGB filters 20x30 sec each) 0.5 hours integration time
June 15, 2018

Next is M28, a globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius. It was discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1764. He briefly described it as a "nebula containing no star... round, seen with difficulty in 3½-foot telescope. M28 is at a distance of about 17,900 light-years away from Earth, has a combined 551,000 times the mass of the Sun and is 12 billion years old (Wikipedia).

M28 - EdgeHD-11 w/FR f/7.0

ASI1600mm Pro (RGB filters 20x30 sec each) 0.5 hours integration time

June 16, 2018

Finally, a well known galaxy of amateur astronomers. The Black Eye Galaxy (also called Evil Eye Galaxy; designated Messier 64, M64, or NGC 4826) is a galaxy which was discovered by Edward Pigott in March 1779, and independently by Johann Elert Bode in April of the same year, as well as by Charles Messier in 1780. It has a spectacular dark band of absorbing dust in front of the galaxy's bright nucleus, giving rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye" or "Evil Eye" galaxy. M64 is well known among amateur astronomers because of its appearance in small telescopes. It is a spiral galaxy in the Coma Berenices constellation (Wikipedia).

M64 The Black-Eye Galaxy - EdgeHD-11 w/FR f/7.0

ASI1600mm Pro (RGB filters 29x60 sec each) 1.4 hours integration time

June 15, 2018

M14 - Globular Cluster in Ophiuchus

Working with the ASI1600mm Pro mono camera is fun, also a chore, but the results are really worth the time and effort.  Although my mount is still pretty finicky at the longer focal lengths of the EdgeHD-11, globular clusters are fairly bright and don't require a lot of exposure to get reasonably good results.

M14 (NGC 6402) May 10, 2018
EdgeHD-11 f/7  ASI1600mm RGB 45 minutes integration

Here is M14, a globular cluster in the constellation of Ophiuchus. At a distance of about 30,000 light-years, M14 contains several hundred thousand stars. At an apparent magnitude of +7.6 it can be easily observed with binoculars. Medium-sized telescopes will show some hint of the individual stars of which the brightest is of magnitude +14.

The total luminosity of M14 is in the order of 400,000 times that of the Sun corresponding to an absolute magnitude of -9.12. The shape of the cluster is decidedly elongated. M14 is about 100 light-years across.  (Wikipedia)

This image of M14 is a combination of 15 subs each of R, G and B, with an individual exposure of 60 seconds for each filter.

Galaxies in Ursa Major and Thor's Helmet in Canis Major

Been spending a lot of time learning the complexities of narrow band (NB) imaging, and after a lot of research and experimentation on PixInsight (the software used to post process the images) I finally arrived at an acceptable final image of the M81-M82 galaxy group in Ursa Major.

Messier 81, the galaxy on the right (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy), is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away, in the constellation Ursa Major. Due to its proximity to Earth, large size, and active galactic nucleus (which harbors a supermassive black hole 70 million times the mass of our sun), Messier 81 has been studied extensively by professional astronomers. The galaxy's large size and relatively high brightness also make it a popular target for amateur astronomers. (Wikipedia)

Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034, Cigar Galaxy or M82) is a starburst galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. A member of the M81 Group, it is about five times more luminous than the whole Milky Way and has a center one hundred times more luminous than our galaxy's center. The starburst activity is thought to have been triggered by interaction with neighboring galaxy M81.(Wikipedia)

M81-82 Galaxy Group - March 16 and April 30, 2018
GT102 APO Refractor - ASI1600mm Camera
3.2 hours RGBHa

I had already pretty much determined the process of using my new astro camera with the standard Red, Green, Blue filters, but adding in the narrowband Ha subs has been a challenge. M81 was especially problematic in that the core of the galaxy is so bright. I still need some time to properly set the camera's settings, exposure times and final post processing to improve on the results. In addition, the mount I am using is still exhibiting some oscillations in RA and this is contributing to some softening of the image.

Thor's Helmet was a better success. NGC 2359 (also known as Thor's Helmet) is an emission nebula in the constellation Canis Major. The nebula is approximately 3,670 parsecs (11.96 thousand light years) away and 30 light-years in size. The central star is the Wolf-Rayet star WR7, an extremely hot star thought to be in a brief pre-supernova stage of evolution. It is similar in nature to the Bubble Nebula, but interactions with a nearby large molecular cloud are thought to have contributed to the more complex shape and curved bow-shock structure of Thor's Helmet.

Thor's Helmet - March 16, 17 and 18, 2018
GT102 APO Refractor - ASI1600mm Camera
6.3 hours RGBHaOIII

This object emits mainly in the Ha and OIII spectrum. Capturing this nebula using my previous OSC camera would never have given me the result shown here. This object truly needs NB imaging to get the most it has to offer.

Man made protection around Earth ... Interesting.

NASA

In 2017, NASA space probes detected a massive, human-made 'barrier' surrounding Earth.
And tests have confirmed that it's actually having an effect on space weather far beyond our planet's atmosphere.
That means we're not just changing Earth so severely, scientists are calling for a whole new geological epoch to be named after us - our activities have been changing space too.
But the good news is that unlike our influence on the planet itself, that humongous bubble we created out in space is actually working in our favour.
Check out the complete story at Science Alert

Presentation Cancelled

Due to the weather situation, the presentation on High Powered Amatuer Rockets is cancelled for this evening.  We will reschedule and send out a new announcement at a later date.

Amateur Rocketry Presentation

I will be guest speaker at the Chesapeake Chapter of INCOSE on Mar 21, 2018 (6:00 - 8:00) presenting "The Engineering of High Power Amateur Rockets". This is the same presentation I gave back in 2015 (with a few modifications). With only 1hr for the talk this is just a brief introduction to my hobby in rocketry but covers most everything involved. It will be at APL in Laurel, MD.

There is a cost for the dinner, but attending the presentation is free. Details at:

Chesapeake Chapter of INCOSE

Supernova in Galaxy NGC 3941

On early Saturday morning I was experimenting with my new camera and decided to image a new supernova in galaxy NGC 3941.  This type Ia supernova was discovered on 2/3/2018 by Masaki Tsuboi and is located 4".1 east and 0".8 north of the center of NGC 3941.  At the time of discovery it was Mag 13.0; I estimated mag 14 when I captured it.

SN 2018pv in NGC 3941
EdgeHD11 f/7 - ASI1600mm Luminance only (40x10sec)
February 17, 2018

To give you an idea of how bright supernovae get, consider that NGC 3941 is a barred lenticular galaxy located in the constellation Ursa Major at a distance of 40 million light years from Earth. The supernova is almost outshining the center halo of the galaxy - one star - almost brighter than the whole collection of millions of stars in the galaxy!  If a star in our own galaxy were to go supernova it would outshine all other objects in the sky except the sun and would be visible in broad daylight. This actually happened back in 1054 AD.

The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant in the constellation of Taurus. The now-current name is due to William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, who observed the object in 1840 using a 36-inch telescope and produced a drawing that looked somewhat like a crab. Corresponding to a bright supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054, the nebula was observed later by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified with a historical supernova explosion (wikipedia).

The blue marble

Not the usual post from me but this is just great. Enjoy!!

Falcon Heavy Success!!!

Falcon Heavy Launch - Feb 6, 2018

Congrats to SpaceX for a fantastic test flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket.  What an unbelievable launch. A dream that has eluded NASA was achieved yet again by SpaceX - the launch and landing of reusable rocket boosters. This time, two of them, side by side, simultaneously!

And the stage-2 rocket is sending one of Elon Musk's Tesla Roadsters on a course toward Mars. Yep, you read that right - Mars. He revealed surreal live video feeds of the car cruising around the planet, complete with a “Don’t Panic” dashboard message, a dummy astronaut in the driver’s seat, and David Bowie on the radio.

The only down-side to a picture perfect launch was the unsuccessful landing of the middle core of SpaceX’s huge rocket which missed the drone ship where it was supposed to land. The center core was only able to relight one of the three engines necessary to land, and so it hit the water at 300 miles per hour. Two engines on the drone ship were taken out when it crashed, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a press call after the rocket launch (as reported by The Verge).

Visit YouTube for the video coverage of the launch.

New Astrocamera on the bench in test

ZWO ASI1600mm Pro Camera with
EFW 8-position Filter Wheel

It's been about 2 years since I purchased my QHY10 OSC (One Shot Color) camera and I've taken a number of nice astrophotos with it, both at the prime focus of my EdgeHD as well as on the Hyperstar wide field lens. But the "real-deal" in astrophotography is though the use of mono (black and white) cameras. In the OSC case, the image is taken in color, much like a normal digital camera. In this scenario, the light must pass a filter in the camera known as a Bayer Matrix, which consists of alternating red, green (2x as many as red and blue) and blue filter elements. A given sensor therefore contains 25% red sensitive pixels, 50% green pixels and 25% blue. So the light from a object in space is split into these groupings. What this means is that a predominately red object is only captured by 25% of the pixels on the sensor (and lots of deep space objects tend to be in the red end of the spectrum). Much of the sensor is wasted and the sensitivity is greatly reduced.

A mono camera captures all the light all the time. That means it is much more sensitive and captures a lot more data in any given exposure. But if its mono, how do you get a color photo?

Astrophotographers use a set of colored filters to achieve a final image. Four separate exposures are necessary to create a single color photo - one through a red filter, one through a green, one through a blue and finally one through a clear, or luminance, filter. These are then combined later in software post processing to produce a color image. So the time on the telescope is quadrupled when imaging with a mono camera, but the results are of greater quality and capture much more detail in the dim regions of an object.

So I've been spending some time testing and getting the software set up to handle the new camera while the skies are cloudy. The photo shows the ASI1600mm Pro being tested with it's filter wheel attached. Much to do as I hope to test it out on real space objects in the coming days.

Follow the bouncing "Universe"!

 

An interesting theory now proposes that the universe didn't come from a colossal explosion (the Big Bang) but rather as the result of a cosmic bounce - a collapsing universe reaches a point where it bounces back and starts expanding again.

The theory is rather interesting, and doesn't need the controversial 'inflation' part of the popular Big Bang theory.

Read more at:  Quanta Magazine

Fundamental physics is frustrating physicists

Science and technology

Jan 13th 2018

No GUTs, no glory ...

DEEP in a disused zinc mine in Japan, 50,000 tonnes of purified water held in a vast cylindrical stainless-steel tank are quietly killing theories long cherished by physicists. Since 1996, the photomultiplier-tube detectors (pictured above) at Super-Kamiokande, an experiment under way a kilometre beneath Mount Ikeno, near Hida, have been looking for signs that one of the decillion (10³³) or so protons and neutrons within it (of which a water molecule contains ten and eight respectively) has decayed into lighter subatomic particles.
That those tubes have, in the more than 20 years the experiment has been running, failed to do so is a conundrum for physics, and one that is becoming more urgent with every passing month.

For the complete story head on over to The Economist